Two Canadian law firms have filed a $1.1-billion class-action lawsuit on behalf of former patients of government-run “Indian hospitals,” which comprised a decades-long segregated health care system now marred by allegations of widespread mistreatment and abuse, CBC News has learned. Read the rest of this entry →

APTN National News/The Canadian Press, Oct 24, 2014
Nunavut’s “cradle-to-prison” justice system must be reformed to reflect the high number of people in the territory who have been victims of physical and sexual violence, an Inuit land-claim group said Thursday.

“There are few safety nets in place to catch people who are experiencing adversity,” said a report from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

“Nunavut’s criminal justice system is often the first stop in a cradle-to-prison pipeline in which people struggling with trauma, mental health disorders or prenatal alcohol exposure are most vulnerable to incarceration.”

The report released during the group’s annual meeting in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, is the latest in a series of papers required by the Nunavut land claim on the state of Inuit culture and society. The 2013-2014 report focuses on the territory’s criminal justice system. Read the rest of this entry →